I have a nice memory of seeing this film on TV when I was a kid at my grandparent’s house. This was after I had an experience with wasps swarming into a mobile home I lived in a year or so before that. Always be careful around nature! :)
As a kid I thought this film was incredible and raved about it. Years later as an adult I watched it again on DVD and laughed my arse off through the entire thing. I actually now think of it as one of the best unintentional comedies ever made. Hard to believe this was made by the same guy who made two of my favourite all time films, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.
Irwin Allen produced those movies, but he _directed The Swarm_ and that's a large part of the problem. _Poseidon_ starts off with a majestic liner riding through a stormy sea; _Towering_ begins with a helicopter touring the California coast; _The Swarm_ opens with a still shot of a hideous brown landscape. Each opening sets the tone. I had only just finished the novel by Arthur Herzog when the movie's upcoming release was announced. The book was incredible, so I was psyched. Even when afternoon talk shows aired clips that seemed to have nothing to do with the book, I remained excited. When I left the theater, I cursed my head off (but still bought the Jerry Goldsmith album). You can track how the screenplay evolved, but only three characters from the book appear in the film--and Michael Caine and Katherine Ross' roles aren't among them! The _leads_ were made up for the movie! The novel involves the entire continental United States and takes place over years. Allen wanted something more explodey and intense, so he reduced it to a couple of weeks in Texas. There IS a team of scientists assembled in an abandoned military complex to face the threat, and many of them DO suffer unfortunate fates, but there's no meltdown, no train crash, no plan to burn Houston to the ground, and nobody blows up the Gulf of Mexico. The only scenes that come from the book are the picnic attack, the attack on Marysville (California), and the venom antidote test. Herzog must have been outraged by the "adaptation" of his novel.
People were interested in bees because the africanized hybrid “killer bee” had just shown up in the US, from South America, in the 1970s. Because of this, they were constantly in the news and people were scared.
I thought Michael Caine's performance was AMAZING!!! He's always great, and I don't know if anyone else could have done as good a job as he did. As an adult I see how preposterous the story is, but as a kid, it was totally believable to me. It's fantastic.
This was one of my favorite movies for a while when I was young, and I still think it's pretty amazing. When I was a kid I took it very seriously, but as an adult I laugh at how preposterous it is. It's still a great movie. It was very well done.
I enjoyed the great explosion when the Nuke plant went up. The premise for why the site would explode so dramatically was totally unrealistic, but it's a miniature explosion I'm sure Gerry Anderson would approve of.
The King of disaster 70's Movies and 60's Sometimes Campy Television such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Land of the Giants, and The Time Tunnel! 👍👍
It was cool that they did a few shots actually in Houston, the city under attack by the bees. Also, Houston was a realistic target because the bees were supposedly moving up eastern Mexico. However, there are no MOUNTAINS or DESERTS near Houston. Yet supposedly a train near Houston was in mountains? Swamps, forests, and tallgrass prairies. Farmland, small plot cattle ranches, orchards. And the land is FLAT. That's what southeast Texas looks like.
Great Ten Things about the Swarm Jonny, Appreciate it and Bee 🐝 Curious 🐝 Awesome and 🐝 Bee - ware of the Swarm! 😨😱🤕🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Love almost everything by irwin Allen of cause his classic sci fi shows the time tunnel land of the giants that both definitely need remakes and voyage to the bottom of the sea wasn't two much of a fan of lost in space which has had a recent new version made have you seen it JB and would you ever do a review of it as you've done the original and the film reboot. The swarm is a so ridicules but entertaining watch when there's nothing else on. With the over the top deaths that happen I would say its my favourite kiiler bees movie / i wonder if they were planing on doing a sequel to it if it had been successful as Allen's other disaster filck the Poseidon adventure got one when the first movie was a hit but it was a disaster in its self but no towering inferno 2
@@thomashumphrey48 Actually, that's not a "longer" cut - that's the original version. We just got a shortened version in Europe, so most Europeans hadn't seen the original cut until it was released on DVD.
The film was very loosely based on the novel The Swarm by Arthur Herzog. The novel is quite good-having a very Andromeda Strain/Michael Crichton vibe. I read the book prior to seeing the film. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.
I thought that it was Jaw 4 the Revenge that was the movie that bought Cain his house. There was a interview in which Cain was ask about Jaw 4 and he said that he never watch the final movie. But he did pay for his house.
He did mention once in an interview that a number of these bad films he did paid for a number of holiday houses. I really wish I could track done that interview
I remember the promotion of this when I was a young child. I was terrified of the black clouds that was the Swarm. I remember seeing it when it premiered on TV. It was great. Sadly, as an adult it just doesn't cut it. It is laughably bad, yet I will always have a soft spot for it!
I often revel in watching laughably bad movies. It just has to be so bad it's good. And not many movies manage that. This movie...yeah, so bad it's good.
John Williams could not work on the soundtrack because he was doing that of "Superman", curiously the producers of Richard Donner's film wanted Jerry Goldsmith at first, but they could not, because he was doing the soundtrack of the second part of "The Omen ".
I remember seeing Star Wars after they took it out of exclusive showing( and put it in a duplex) at the cinema Capri in Phoenix Arizona. And I remember going by the theater called the Bethany theater and it was presented and its letter in illustration on the Marquee at the theater. We are on our way to go to the Grand Canyon for the first time, but long story short that's the only thing I remember about that movie and the commercials but I never went and seen it and do it he came on TV and I watched a little of it but wasn't too interested. But I remember the ending where they killed them off in a gigantic wall fire but that's all I remember.
I saw this at cinema when i was 6 and thought it was great and even daring in realism showing kids dying, the kid(s) getting revenge with dustbin shields was smart too though angering the bees wasn't so smart.
I liked this film and still do and seeing Michael Caine act in this made the film for me it's how i see Michael Cain like escape to victory The Italian Job 1969 Jaws: The Revenge The Man Who Would Be King A Bridge Too Far for me there just a few of how well he played in films a true Great British actor.
Fun fact: Rupert Murdoch's first foray into American media was to buy the papers in San Antonio, TX. It was near the border and to 'tabloidize' the titles he ran scare stories about Mexican killer bees heading for the city.
Caine looks p*ssed off in many scenes. From 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'Towering Inferno', 'The Swarm' was a real misfire. Having Caine and Ross share a quiet intense conversation with huge explosions going off in the background rear projection is just an example of how mishandled most of the film is. Fonda's death scene is probably the sequence that most resembles competent film making and Richard Widmark gives the best performance. When your script has the bees attack a nuclear power station at the very moment that Richard Chamberlain asks Jose Ferrer if a bee attack has ever been considered (the alarm sirens go off literally just after that line)....well....what can I say.
interesting they used so many bees 800k+ wonder how many died. i recall a couple interesting truths/Facts dustin hoffman in 'wag the dog' was Credited (as the Producer of '4 horsemen' ) as able to still successfully film the rest of principle photography, even after "three of the horsemen died'. dustin hoffman played a Thoroughbred Horse owner in "LUCK", but the series Even with a Massive penalty payout to dustin and others, was cancelled after 'THREE of the horses died during principle filming' // so i will assume some bees died in this production and ever since there is or has been many reports of deaths of bees and the fear of their death... and same challenge happened to sharks.. putting the species on the big screen is bad news 4 'them'/ .. on a personal note, i worked at fort erie racetrack while they filmed TV commercials and there was a trainer that agreed to rent out his horses for the spots.. the constant, run and run for another take and another one, really breaks the horse(s). he lost at least three horses for the season (months) none died.... / this was pre CGI any ways.. when making movies with species in Mind. i refer to the David Brown quote about making a shark jump on to a boat, crack the boat in Half and eat some dude..."who was going to do this? was this going to be animation? who was going to do this?"./// bees they make honey but they shit all over their flight plan and the only color they know is Yellow//
I saw this film on opening day and was absolutely aghast at just how awful this film was. For the life of me I don't know how any of those actors held straight faces. They just HAD to know they were appearing in a piece of crap. People seemingly forget about something that made "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" such big hits: THEY WERE NOT DIRECTED BY IRWIN ALLEN. As flawed as those movies were, they were at least entertaining for the right reasons. Irwin Allen, to put it kindly, was a terrible director. Just like Edward D. Wood, he absolutely loved what he was doing - but seemingly had no clue as to how awful his achievements were. But don't get me wrong, I'm sure he was a nice person.
In the village scene, you can see a movie theater that has a poster for "The Towering Inferno".
I have a nice memory of seeing this film on TV when I was a kid at my grandparent’s house. This was after I had an experience with wasps swarming into a mobile home I lived in a year or so before that. Always be careful around nature! :)
As a kid I thought this film was incredible and raved about it. Years later as an adult I watched it again on DVD and laughed my arse off through the entire thing. I actually now think of it as one of the best unintentional comedies ever made. Hard to believe this was made by the same guy who made two of my favourite all time films, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.
I saw it at the movies in 1978 when I was 14. I thought it was ok, but now, the dialogue is so funny :)
Hell man I liked it especially when they broke out the flame thrower
Irwin Allen produced those movies, but he _directed The Swarm_ and that's a large part of the problem. _Poseidon_ starts off with a majestic liner riding through a stormy sea; _Towering_ begins with a helicopter touring the California coast; _The Swarm_ opens with a still shot of a hideous brown landscape. Each opening sets the tone.
I had only just finished the novel by Arthur Herzog when the movie's upcoming release was announced. The book was incredible, so I was psyched. Even when afternoon talk shows aired clips that seemed to have nothing to do with the book, I remained excited. When I left the theater, I cursed my head off (but still bought the Jerry Goldsmith album). You can track how the screenplay evolved, but only three characters from the book appear in the film--and Michael Caine and Katherine Ross' roles aren't among them! The _leads_ were made up for the movie!
The novel involves the entire continental United States and takes place over years. Allen wanted something more explodey and intense, so he reduced it to a couple of weeks in Texas. There IS a team of scientists assembled in an abandoned military complex to face the threat, and many of them DO suffer unfortunate fates, but there's no meltdown, no train crash, no plan to burn Houston to the ground, and nobody blows up the Gulf of Mexico. The only scenes that come from the book are the picnic attack, the attack on Marysville (California), and the venom antidote test. Herzog must have been outraged by the "adaptation" of his novel.
People were interested in bees because the africanized hybrid “killer bee” had just shown up in the US, from South America, in the 1970s. Because of this, they were constantly in the news and people were scared.
They are nasty aggressive little beggars. I'm glad they are not in the UK
I thought Michael Caine's performance was AMAZING!!! He's always great, and I don't know if anyone else could have done as good a job as he did. As an adult I see how preposterous the story is, but as a kid, it was totally believable to me. It's fantastic.
Joe It’s melodramatic at best.
This was one of my favorite movies for a while when I was young, and I still think it's pretty amazing. When I was a kid I took it very seriously, but as an adult I laugh at how preposterous it is. It's still a great movie. It was very well done.
I swear I must have watched this movie over 50 times on Showtime back in the day. Like every time it was on, I watched it!!!
I enjoyed the great explosion when the Nuke plant went up. The premise for why the site would explode so dramatically was totally unrealistic, but it's a miniature explosion I'm sure Gerry Anderson would approve of.
And that should also have wiped out the entire swarm
The King of disaster 70's Movies and 60's Sometimes Campy Television such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Land of the Giants, and The Time Tunnel! 👍👍
I remember this movie when was a child!
Love these. Thank you, Sir!
It was cool that they did a few shots actually in Houston, the city under attack by the bees. Also, Houston was a realistic target because the bees were supposedly moving up eastern Mexico. However, there are no MOUNTAINS or DESERTS near Houston. Yet supposedly a train near Houston was in mountains?
Swamps, forests, and tallgrass prairies. Farmland, small plot cattle ranches, orchards. And the land is FLAT. That's what southeast Texas looks like.
Great Ten Things about the Swarm Jonny, Appreciate it and Bee 🐝 Curious 🐝 Awesome and 🐝 Bee - ware of the Swarm! 😨😱🤕🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
I love The Swarm, it is such a fun movie!
Love almost everything by irwin Allen of cause his classic sci fi shows the time tunnel land of the giants that both definitely need remakes and voyage to the bottom of the sea wasn't two much of a fan of lost in space which has had a recent new version made have you seen it JB and would you ever do a review of it as you've done the original and the film reboot. The swarm is a so ridicules but entertaining watch when there's nothing else on. With the over the top deaths that happen I would say its my favourite kiiler bees movie / i wonder if they were planing on doing a sequel to it if it had been successful as Allen's other disaster filck the Poseidon adventure got one when the first movie was a hit but it was a disaster in its self but no towering inferno 2
I LOVE "The Swarm" - it needs a proper blu-ray release!
Morten Steen Absolutely!
And I JUST read that a blu-ray was announced at Comic Con recently! No date yet, but it's coming. :D Great!
@@thomashumphrey48 Actually, that's not a "longer" cut - that's the original version. We just got a shortened version in Europe, so most Europeans hadn't seen the original cut until it was released on DVD.
I don't get why so many people hate this movie. I think it is a very entertaining movie.
The film was very loosely based on the novel The Swarm by Arthur Herzog. The novel is quite good-having a very Andromeda Strain/Michael Crichton vibe. I read the book prior to seeing the film. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.
I'm currently reading the swarm on my kindle. Good book
Irwin Allen was a genius. I just love all of his movies.
I love disaster movies from the 1970s 👍
"NOT THE BEES !!!"
Sorry --I had to say it.
Irwin Allen also produced the 1980 film When Time Ran Out.
The Swarm...sounds like a cool name for punk band.
I thought that it was Jaw 4 the Revenge that was the movie that bought Cain his house.
There was a interview in which Cain was ask about Jaw 4 and he said that he never watch the final movie. But he did pay for his house.
He did mention once in an interview that a number of these bad films he did paid for a number of holiday houses. I really wish I could track done that interview
And Caine did many bad films but I still love him in these b grade roles.
Olivia de Havilland is a brilliant, Oscar-winning actress but she’s so melodramatic in this it had to be Allen’s direction.
Never seen this movie, after watching your review i may well check it out :)
I'm not familiar with this film, and I still enjoyed this video.
Keep doing what you enjoy, and your audience will follow you.
It used to be a yearly showing on tv.
this film may have been a failure at the box office but its hardly one of the worse films ever made. its pure popcorn
I remember the promotion of this when I was a young child. I was terrified of the black clouds that was the Swarm. I remember seeing it when it premiered on TV. It was great. Sadly, as an adult it just doesn't cut it. It is laughably bad, yet I will always have a soft spot for it!
I often revel in watching laughably bad movies. It just has to be so bad it's good. And not many movies manage that. This movie...yeah, so bad it's good.
John Williams could not work on the soundtrack because he was doing that of "Superman", curiously the producers of Richard Donner's film wanted Jerry Goldsmith at first, but they could not, because he was doing the soundtrack of the second part of "The Omen ".
Hmm... Very Interesting...
I Wonder Whatever Bcame
Of That John Williams Guy....
I Guess We'll Never Know...
Epic movie
This movie was way ahead of its time.
"Bees, millions of Killer bees!"
I remember seeing Star Wars after they took it out of exclusive showing( and put it in a duplex) at the cinema Capri in Phoenix Arizona. And I remember going by the theater called the Bethany theater and it was presented and its letter in illustration on the Marquee at the theater. We are on our way to go to the Grand Canyon for the first time, but long story short that's the only thing I remember about that movie and the commercials but I never went and seen it and do it he came on TV and I watched a little of it but wasn't too interested. But I remember the ending where they killed them off in a gigantic wall fire but that's all I remember.
I saw this at cinema when i was 6 and thought it was great and even daring in realism showing kids dying, the kid(s) getting revenge with dustbin shields was smart too though angering the bees wasn't so smart.
Great vid, but you called MIchael Caine Martin lol
I liked this film and still do and seeing Michael Caine act in this made the film for me it's how i see Michael Cain like escape to victory The Italian Job 1969 Jaws: The Revenge The Man Who Would Be King A Bridge Too Far for me there just a few of how well he played in films a true Great British actor.
Love this movie 👍🏻💜
Does anyone remember his version of The Lost World 1960 or the film version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea??? Good times! :)
Jacen Starheart Yes I remember it! Might have to check that film out!
Jacen Starheart planning to do all of Irwin Allen’s films soon!
JonnyBaak Very Cool! :)
Fun fact: Rupert Murdoch's first foray into American media was to buy the papers in San Antonio, TX. It was near the border and to 'tabloidize' the titles he ran scare stories about Mexican killer bees heading for the city.
Such great over acting by some of Hollywood's greatest stars
Grew up with this movie😊👌
i saw this in the theater. i was 18
“Those bees never fail to astonish me”.
I'm impress it has never been riffed by Riff Trax or MST3K in its comeback season.
Caine looks p*ssed off in many scenes. From 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'Towering Inferno', 'The Swarm' was a real misfire. Having Caine and Ross share a quiet intense conversation with huge explosions going off in the background rear projection is just an example of how mishandled most of the film is. Fonda's death scene is probably the sequence that most resembles competent film making and Richard Widmark gives the best performance. When your script has the bees attack a nuclear power station at the very moment that Richard Chamberlain asks Jose Ferrer if a bee attack has ever been considered (the alarm sirens go off literally just after that line)....well....what can I say.
one reviewer: Simply the worst film ever made.
the bees (1978): Hold my honey.
There many more worse movies!😂 lol
The main reason for the failure of this movie: Star Wars (1977).
Sometimes we bad movies watch and laugh at how bad and cheesy they are
Irwin Allen's "The Shawarma" about his epic battle to get lunch, was better than this.
Personally I think "Ashanti" was Micheal Caine's worst ever film, that him in this joke of a disaster movie, was just about watchable.
interesting they used so many bees 800k+ wonder how many died. i recall a couple interesting truths/Facts
dustin hoffman in 'wag the dog' was Credited (as the Producer of '4 horsemen' ) as able to still successfully film the rest of principle photography, even after "three of the horsemen died'.
dustin hoffman played a Thoroughbred Horse owner in "LUCK", but the series Even with a Massive penalty payout to dustin and others, was cancelled after 'THREE of the horses died during principle filming' //
so i will assume some bees died in this production and ever since there is or has been many reports of deaths of bees and the fear of their death... and same challenge happened to sharks.. putting the species on the big screen is bad news 4 'them'/
.. on a personal note, i worked at fort erie racetrack while they filmed TV commercials and there was a trainer that agreed to rent out his horses for the spots.. the constant, run and run for another take and another one, really breaks the horse(s). he lost at least three horses for the season (months) none died.... /
this was pre CGI any ways.. when making movies with species in Mind. i refer to the David Brown quote about making a shark jump on to a boat, crack the boat in Half and eat some dude..."who was going to do this? was this going to be animation? who was going to do this?"./// bees they make honey but they shit all over their flight plan and the only color they know is Yellow//
A real disaster of a movie.
I saw this film on opening day and was absolutely aghast at just how awful this film was. For the life of me I don't know how any of those actors held straight faces. They just HAD to know they were appearing in a piece of crap. People seemingly forget about something that made "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" such big hits: THEY WERE NOT DIRECTED BY IRWIN ALLEN. As flawed as those movies were, they were at least entertaining for the right reasons. Irwin Allen, to put it kindly, was a terrible director. Just like Edward D. Wood, he absolutely loved what he was doing - but seemingly had no clue as to how awful his achievements were. But don't get me wrong, I'm sure he was a nice person.